How Do We Really Motivate Affluent Shoppers?

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Scott Magids

Like many in the world of retailing, Motista’s retail clients are keenly focused on affluent shoppers. While households with incomes over $100,000 account for 18% of all U.S. households, affluent consumers now constitute 50% of all U.S. retail spending. Retailers are frequently asking Motista how to best motivate affluent consumers to shop more, pay more and recommend their brands. In search of insights, we took a look at Motista’s Q1-2012 intelligence on retailers and here’s what we learned:

Findings

Retailers have BIG opportunities to leverage emotional connection to motivate affluent shoppers. We compared affluent shoppers who are emotionally connected to their retailers to affluent shoppers who are highly satisfied with their retailers (e.g., giving high marks to service, value, and selection) but not emotionally connected.  Here’s what we found:

Willing to Pay Higher Prices: Emotionally connected shoppers are less price sensitive.  Sixty-two percent of connected affluent shoppers are willing to pay their retailers higher prices for comparable products, compared to 14% of satisfied affluent shoppers.

More advocacy: Emotional connection powers advocacy. Eighty-three percent of connected affluent shoppers “feel good” telling their friends, family and colleagues about their retailers, versus 18% of satisfied affluent shoppers. Seventy-two percent of connected affluent shoppers “share important values” with their retailers, compared to 6% of satisfied affluent shoppers. Moreover, 28% of connected affluent shoppers have recently recommended their retailers to friends, family members or colleagues, versus just 6% of satisfied affluent shoppers.

More shopping: Affluent shoppers who are emotionally connected are shopping more. Twenty-nine percent of connected affluent shoppers have recently used loyalty program points to make a purchase, compared to just 5% of satisfied affluent shoppers. Twenty-eight percent of connected affluent shoppers have recently browsed items on their retailers’ mobile sites through their PDAs or smartphones, compared to 7% of satisfied affluent shoppers. And, 25% of connected affluent shoppers have recently added items to their shopping carts on their retailers’ websites, compared to 6% of satisfied affluent shoppers.

The emotions most motivating: During Q1-2012, affluent shoppers were most motivated to shop their retailers when they feel their retailers help them “perform at a higher level.” Closely behind was the emotion “community,” when shoppers feel they’re helping their community by shopping their retailers. Feeling their retailers help them live their lives the way they want to live them was the third strongest emotion driving affluent shoppers in Q1.

Operationalizing emotion: Our retail clients are increasingly focused on operationalizing emotion – delivering specific emotional connections across touch points and experiences. Using the top emotion in Q1-2012 (“perform at a higher level”), we analyzed 60 touch points to see which were delivering this emotion in Q1. A sample of this analysis:

Percent who feel “perform at a higher level” when they:

Based on our analyses, it’s emotional connection that is driving affluent shoppers – who constitute 50% of all purchasing – to shop their retailers.  We’re excited to be working with leading retailers that are using Motista’s intelligence to create stronger brands, better marketing programs and more engaging shopper experiences.

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How Do We Prove the Value of Facebook and Twitter to Our Business?

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Scott Magids

In recent weeks, Motista’s retail clients have asked us to help quantify and prove the business value of marketing through Facebook and Twitter. 

Our retail clients continue to express “cautious optimism” when it comes to these vehicles.  Of course, Facebook and Twitter represent huge audiences that are spending more and more time online.  At minimum, our clients have established presences on Facebook and Twitter to support brand awareness and engagement.  However, recent efforts to open Facebook storefronts (so-called “F-commerce”) by big retail brands have fizzled, with Nordstrom, J.C. Penney and The Gap opening and then quickly (and very publically) shuttering their Facebook storefronts.  Our clients are just in the experimentation stage when it comes to Facebook advertising. In all cases, only a small portion of our clients’ marketing resources are devoted to Facebook and Twitter today.

Each of our retail clients has accumulated at least hundreds of thousands of followers and “likes,” but there are still many questions surrounding social media networks, such as, “What’s the business value of having followers and likes?  How hard should we work to build our following on these platforms, and how much should we invest to grow followers and likes in the future?”

Findings

Using Motista’s Q4-2011 intelligence on retail brands, we compared consumers who follow their retailers through Facebook or Twitter with consumers who do not. Here’s what we found:

Social Media Followers Are More Emotionally Connected: Forty-six percent of social media followers feel shopping their retailers “reflects their personal lifestyles” vs. 21% of non-followers.  Among social media followers, 53% choose their retailers when they want to “indulge” themselves vs. 28% of non-followers.  And, 46% of social media followers feel their retailers add “joy and pleasure” to their lives vs. 20% of non-followers.  Social media is an effective vehicle for building emotional connection.  And stronger emotional connection leads to better business outcomes.

Higher Response Rates: Twenty-eight percent of social media followers have responded to recent promotions from their retailers sent via direct (snail) mail, vs. 10% of non-followers.  The emotional connection formed through social media is translating into higher response rates.

More Shopping: Thirty-eight percent of social media followers have, in the past 30 days, added items to their shopping carts on their retailers’ websites.  This compares to 9% of non-followers.  While social media consumers may not be ready to buy through Facebook storefronts, they are shopping their retailers’ websites more often than their counterparts.

Pay Higher Prices: Twenty-four percent of social media followers say they would pay higher prices for comparable goods from their retailers, vs. 13% of non-followers.  The emotional connection social media consumers form with their retailers translates into less price sensitivity.

More Advocacy: Seventy-three percent of social media followers have recently recommended their retail brand, vs. 40% of non-followers.  We know deeper emotional connection and advocacy go hand-in-hand, and Facebook and Twitter are natural environments for brand advocacy.  Additionally, social media followers write reviews more often:  32% have recently provided a positive review of their retailer online, vs. 4% of non-followers.

Consumers following their retailers on Facebook and Twitter are forming strong emotional connections, which lead to better financial results for retailers.  Using Connection Intelligence from Motista, retailers are building unique emotional connections for their brands through Facebook and Twitter and effectively measuring the impact of these vehicles on their businesses.

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The Trouble with Market Research…

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Alan Zorfas

Tom Fishburne Marketoon

Our friend Tom Fishburne recently published a  great cartoon entitled “Market Research”  that speaks directly to the problem we founded Motista to help address—the length of time it takes for marketers to get the consumer insights they need to do their jobs.

As usual, Tom’s post was spot on (and he’s kindly allowed us to post this particular cartoon here on our blog, as well!).  The time, resources and waiting involved in the traditional market research processes we’ve all relied on for decades—quant studies, focus groups, store intercepts, concept testing, etc.—just have not kept pace with the speed of business (or consumers, for that matter) today.  Unfortunately, this traditional model, while still providing valuable insights, is broken and ripe for disruption.  Market researchers need new tools that can help them gain insights into what motivates consumers at the emotional level, and they need those insights right now, not in weeks or months.

As luck would have it, those are the kind of timely insights into consumer motivations that our connection intelligence tools were designed to provide.  And with Motista, you don’t have to wait until you’re nearly retired to get them!

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Motista’s Top 3 Marketing Trends to Watch in 2012

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Team Motista

Trend watching is a favorite pastime for most marketers, and at Motista, we’re no different in wanting to be at the forefront of helping our customers spot trends that will help them be better brand marketers, as well as keep up with the proverbial Joneses!  Over the coming months, we see a few trends really shaping what marketers do and how they plan their campaigns.  If we were betting people here are the trends we’d place our money on for the next year and beyond:

  1. Marketers will focus more and more on “emotional connection”
  2. Mobile devices will continue to accelerate and have a profound impact on customer advocacy
  3. Marketers will be integrating social media, mobile and digital marketing into their core brand strategies—these are no longer emerging outliers

Emotional Connection

The biggest reason marketers will be focusing more on “emotional connection” is because they have to.  Connecting on an emotional level with consumers is becoming a necessity because companies are having a difficult time driving top line growth and they can’t cut costs much more than they already are.

We have reached the post-satisfaction age.  For 40 years, trying to satisfy customers has been the driving force for marketers.  But now that customers expect to have a satisfactory experience with products or brands, the trend over the next decade will be around building “emotional” connections with consumers.  Specifically, not how consumers rate, like or dislike products, but how meaningful brands are in the lives–helping them feel better, improve their lives and achieve their personal goals.

Leading this trend will are companies that have chosen to get on the front end of it.  This is also driving a need for new and better intelligence that makes the human connection with consumers easier to understand and act on within their business organizations. More and more companies will soon learn that “emotional connection” will help will not only increase brand loyalty, but sales, as well.

Mobile Advocacy

Mobile is growing at a faster pace than the Internet when it was first adopted.  Consumers across the globe have mobile devices in hand almost at all times, affecting how we shop. With the convenience and immediacy that mobile brings with it, we see mobile enabling marketers to more deliberately drive advocacy.  In the past, marketers have looked at advocacy as  a phenomena enjoyed by the best brands rather than a lever they can pull in their marketing plans.

It’s no longer enough to track metrics for your “promoters” – marketers need to see their existing customers as their most valuable media channel.  Mobile allows this because of its immediacy and ubiquity.  And, mobile customers are more connected to their brands.  According to our data, over 50 percent of mobile users were likely to forward retail brand information to a family member or friend within the past 30 days versus 35 percent of users who visited the Internet or 20 percent of all retail shoppers.  Mobile transforms customers into brand advocates and makes advocacy actionable for marketers.

Channel Integration

New channels have emerged at an alarming rate over the past decade, and companies have struggled to include them in a comprehensive marketing plan. The time for integrating social media, digital and mobile marketing into core brand strategies rather than treating them like “specialties” within the overall marketing mix has already come.  Marketers can’t afford to experiment or follow a “parallel path” in these areas any more with all of them emerging as fast as they have.  These channels are having a profound impact on consumers, the market and society, so marketing will need to evolve at a faster pace to accommodate and apply them to drive purchases, value and margins.

On the one hand, it’s a natural evolution. On the other, advances in consumer intelligence will enable brand marketers to more easily and routinely achieve success for their campaigns via true integration tactics.

What trends do you see shaping the marketing landscape in the next few years?

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December Consumer Connection Roundup

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Team Motista

The Consumer Connection Roundup features the top articles and blogs that catch the attention of the Motista Team each month on issues and events related to consumer connection.

Here are the most noteworthy articles on marketing and advertising trends we read during the month of December. This month’s articles include a look at how  the Old Spice Guy hopes to make lightning strike twice by personalizing to local markets, and the ways in which marketing led to the rise of one iconic brand and the fall of another. If we didn’t include articles that you thought were especially provocative, please share them with us in the comments section.

Articles of the Month for December:

  • Old Spice guy goes cross-platform for holiday campaign by Douglas Quenqua, ClickZ – Few advertising campaign icons have resonated with consumers as quickly and memorably as Isaiah Mustafa’s “Old Spice Guy.” Introduced in the summer of 2010, Mustafa’s Old Spice campaign immediately went viral, earning 40 million views in a single week and elevating sales of Old Spice Bodywash by 27 percent. Over the holidays, the company tried to further capitalize on Mustafa’s consumer advocacy by personalizing its holiday campaign to local markets. Connecting with customers one-on-one is the best form of engagement. Although big brands like Old Spice cannot do this for everyone, this is a great way to illustrate band alignment to consumer needs and drive brand loyalty.
  • Vogue chief Anna Wintour: “I don’t really follow market research” by Rupal Parekh, AdAge – Breaking news: the Devil wears Prada and doesn’t have much use for consumer statistics. Vogue mastermind, fashion icon and penultimate marketer, Anna Wintour, explains that it’s instinct, not market research that drives her editorial process. While we can learn something from successful marketers who rely their “gut,” most marketers are seeking more reliable intelligence to gain consumer insight on “emotion” and make better decisions…even in fashion. We’ve found that with today’s advances in research and technology, companies can gain a competitive advantage by connecting with their customers on an emotional level.
  • Jack Daniel’s marketing magic by Jim Stengel, Fortune – Jack Daniel’s legendary Tennessee whiskey is magic in a bottle, in more ways than one. Since coming into ownership under Brown-Forman in 1956, the company has “seen a series of brilliant innovations that have preserved and extended the richness of its brand experience, while never veering off its hallowed ideal.” Jim Stengel takes an insightful look at how gutsy marketing ploys and bold branding decisions transformed a small town distillery into a global megabrand that feels just as uniquely American and down-home as it did a century ago.
  • What every marketer can lean from Saab’s crash and burn by Patrick Hanlon, Forbes – Let’s face it- sometimes, bad cars happen. The Fiesta, the Pinto and the Edsel all come to mind as automobiles that deserved to chug away into the great beyond. But what happens when, as in the case of Saab, a good car goes under because of branding missteps and poor marketing decisions? As Patrick Hanlon brilliantly summarizes,” a brand that cannot sit across from a buyer.. and tell them where they’re from, what they’re about, what identifies them in the market, how they’re used, the language they use that surrounds their community, what they’re not and never want to become, and who’s steering the way—will ultimately fail.” Connecting with consumers is only as good as your brand’s identity. If you can’t define your brand, how can you convey the value to your target audience?
  • The 10 most-watched ads of 2011 on YouTube by Tim Nudd, AdWeek –From Jennifer Aniston’s Smart Water campaign that managed to squeeze in every imaginable marketing ploy in less than 3 minutes to the nostalgic Star Wars themed Volkswagen commercial, these ten brands struck viral gold in 2011. Check out the videos to see some of the ingenious ways in which these ten brands connected with the public in 2011. Which one is your favorite?
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November Consumer Connection Roundup

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Team Motista

The Consumer Connection Roundup features the top articles and blogs that catch the attention of the Motista Team each month on issues and events related to consumer connection.

Here are the most noteworthy articles on marketing and advertising trends we read during the month of November. This month’s articles range from discussing the relevance of the 4P’s to learning marketing strategies from three of hip hop’s social media gurus. If we didn’t include articles that you thought were especially provocative, please share them with us in the comments section.

Articles of the Month for November:

  •  Why do B-schools still teach the famed 4P’s of marketing, when three are dead? by Jens Martin Skibsted and Ramus Bech Hansen, Fast Company – The advent of the Internet has changed marketing forever and ultimately rendered previous marketing strategies, like the 4P’s (promotion, place, price and product), antiquated. We agree with the author’s new “golden rule” for today’s hyper competitive market: “The only way you can increase the value of your brand is by increasing the value of your offering.” And the only way to do this is to leverage the emotional connections that motivate your customers to act.
  • Engagement: Key customer loyalty indicator by Mark Johnson, MediaPost – How valuable is customer satisfaction? Some brands would argue that it is the most important marketing indicator, yet this survey shows that customer satisfaction is no longer king. How important is satisfaction if a customer can be completely satisfied with a company’s product or service, but chose not to continue to purchase that product or service? This is where emotional connection comes in – the more emotionally connected to a brand, the more loyalty the consumer will display. Our recent data release that examined what drivers brands should pursue during the holiday season yielded the same conclusion.
  • Starbucks forges ‘Moments of Connection’ by offering experience by Maureen Morrison, Ad Age – It was a bold move by then-chairman, current-CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, when he announced that the Starbucks brand had deteriorated in conjunction with the decline of the average number of transactions per store. The experience that propelled Starbucks into one of the world’s largest global brands had changed so much that former advocates began to look elsewhere for their java fix. Starbucks realized that offering products customers want and providing a positive experience is the best form of marketing, and the company was able to turn things around after returning to the in-store experience that previously defined the brand.
  • Sherwin-Williams is painting a new picture of marketing by Keith Levy, Forbes – Writer Keith Levy states that, “It’s the age-old advertising debate and most people would argue (myself included) that the emotional connection is almost always the more powerful and enduring connection to the consumer’s wallet.” We couldn’t agree more. Determining how to become a part of a consumer’s life will result in increased emotional connection, and the “Color Chips” campaign by coatings industry leader Sherwin-Williams has done just that and helped the company grow its DIY market share.
  • 3 lessons learned from rap’s social media kings by Dita Quinones, iMedia Connection – This article offers great insight into marketing strategies that three of hip hop’s biggest names implemented to became social media gurus. The underlying theme of how MC Hammer, Soulja Boy and Nicki Minaj become so adept at Web 2.0 services like Twitter and Facebook – emotional connection. Writer Dita Quinones points out that, “Once the emotional connection is made, fans will actually pay $300 — even if it’s their last dollar — for a Jay-Z ticket because they have an emotional connection with him and his brand.” You’ll be surprised by the amount of advocacy fans will show when they are emotionally connected!
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Moments of Truth Cartoon: Life Insurance is Not “Trending”

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Alan Zorfas

This is the tenth in Motista’s series of cartoons by award-winning cartoonist Tom Fishburne, titled “Moments of Truth.” We’re looking forward to your input on this cartoon. To say thanks for your input, we will send the first five folks who comment a print of this “Marketoon” signed by Tom (U.S. addresses only).

Life insurance has always fascinated me.  Not the policies, but the challenges of stimulating consumer demand now for a benefit way off in the future.

Tom Fishburne, in this latest “Moments of Truth” Marketoon created for Motitsa, highlights the frustrated insurance executive seeking consumer intelligence from social media monitoring.  I love Tom’s choice of life insurance because it opens up tough questions about what it really takes to motivate consumers and, by association, the sources we rely on for insight.

A Peek into Life Insurance

According to industry sources, sales of life insurance have been steadily declining for over two decades.  Six million households—10 percent of families with children under 18—have no life insurance protection at all.  A lot has changed to help explain this: changing population, boomers paying off mortgages and reliance on other financial products like 401(k)s.  But these observable changes don’t explain the entire decline.

According to The Center for Cultural Studies & Analysis, a think tank that helps industries solve the cultural riddles that impact consumer demand, buying life insurance was an “operating assumption” of the WWII generation.  This was then passed on to their children, the huge Baby Boom population.

A recent paper issued by The Center says the following: “It is clear that potential consumers are no longer intuitively thinking about life insurance the way their parents and grandparents did. They are not predisposed to assume the value of life insurance.  Meaning: they have to be convinced.”

In their report, Human Factors, The Center points out how the insurance industry uses its websites to deploy “reason.”  “The Five Worst Reasons for Not Buying Life Insurance.”  “Five Silly Excuses for Not Buying Life Insurance.”  And so on.

Fact is, life insurance makes loads of sense.  You pay a small premium over the years to protect your family from expenses, income loss and financial duress.  The “math” makes sense.

Beyond “Making Sense”– Emotion

We now know that if you light up the limbic system (the brain’s emotional center), then the logical brain will do its thing to validate the decision you want to make.   We’ve also learned from Prospect Theory, the Nobel Prize-winning economic study of Kahneman and Tversky, that we humans don’t make decisions based on linear units of self-serving value as suggested by earlier “rational-based” economic theories.  We are emotional.  And, we act most strongly—even irrationally—to avert loss.

So what’s so hard about selling life insurance?

The real truth is that the emotions which lie in the subconscious drive our actions.  We can’t supply consumers who have resisted buying life insurance with enough “reasons” to buy.  They have to want it.  Insurance companies and their industry organizations can’t just rationalize, they must “motivate.”

Perhaps industry associations should focus on the fundamentals of loss-aversion while individual insurance companies build emotional connections that tap into consumers’ real-life motivations.

Then, the “reasons to buy” will start to make sense.

For a copy of Human Factors, The Slow Death of Life Insurance, email  cultureking@comcast.com.  There will be no unsolicited follow-up e-mails.

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Moments of Truth Cartoon Hypnosis: Bridging the Connection Gap

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Alan Zorfas

This is the ninth in Motista’s series of cartoons by award-winning cartoonist Tom Fishburne, titled “Moments of Truth.” We’re looking forward to your input on this cartoon. To say thanks for your input, we will send the first five folks who comment a print of this “Marketoon” signed by Tom (U.S. addresses only).

The brain, more specifically the “right brain,” (more accurately the amygdala), carries in it the powerful emotions that drive people’s decisions.   As marketers, we intuitively feel that if we could only unlock “why” someone does something—their true motivations—then we could turn our marketing program into the next rave.

The “what” is easy.  There’s no shortage of consumer opinion about our products and services.  Through social media and our own websites, consumers have outlets to share a steady stream of consciousness about their likes and dislikes.

But the “why” is hard.  Unlocking the “unconscious” motivators that lie beneath the surface requires time, money, expertise and “brilliant” insight.   We look at our latest Marketoon from Tom Fishburne and empathize with the marketer hero.  Her eager disposition hints at the enormous pressure she’s under to get the next campaign into the market fast to impact next quarter results.  She impatiently waits for the moment when the consumer “reveals all.”

If probing the right brain of consumers wasn’t hard enough, her next challenge is the “left brain.”  Not of the consumer, but of the management team.  Soon, she’ll be presenting her findings and implications to executives, most of whom put their intuitive thinking on hold during business hours.  Buying into “emotion” threatens their credibility within the business-minded social context they care about.   Can you imagine the divisional president telling his directors that the “hypnotist” findings will drive performance?

While connecting with consumers on an emotional level is clearly good for business (even essential as it becomes harder and harder to differentiate) bridging the consumer’s right brain with management’s left brain is no easy task.

No wonder there’s a “connection gap” between companies and consumers.

Motista is here for the marketer, to give her critical intelligence on the “why” that she can act on to inform campaign development and motivate consumers.  And, it gives the company the internal language—the data and analytics—to help left-brained executives understand and buy into emotion.  In the process, our marketer transforms from helpless and hopeful to successful and persuasive.

That’s a moment of truth.

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Q3 Updates from Motista

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Team Motista

We listened to you and made some innovative upgrades to the Consumer Connection Environment this quarter. New to Motista’s toolset is a positioning tool, as well as several enhanced capabilities within the existing environment.  All of our product improvements are driven by marketers seeking to know WHY consumers develop emotional connections to brands. Here’s to being empowered!

New Positioning Tool:

The X/Y Plotter enables companies to see the relative position of your brand against competing brands from a consumer’s point of view. This can be done across any two connections or outcomes, even in segmented demographics. The new tool enables marketing departments to quickly illustrate a brand’s strengths, weaknesses or progress when compared to competitors.

New Enhanced Capabilities:

  • Sometimes No means more than No: Gaining insight into what motivates “no” consumers– those consumers who have not interacted with or purchased your brand– is extremely valuable, and now you can create and target segments who said “no” to find out what motives this specific segment to buy. Connecting with these consumers  can help drive purchase intent and increase brand awareness
  • More Supporting Messages: We already provide our customers with the top 10 supporting messages to target consumers with, but for some of our customers, 10 just wasn’t enough! Now all Motista users can see all messages ranked by correlation by clicking the “More Messages” button at the bottom of the report.
  • Sample Size Information for Every Chart: Information on statistically significant differences is now available for every chart via the “View Sample Size Table” button! To get even more granular regarding the difference between two brands or segments, re-create the chart with only those two brands to get a more precise confidence measure.

If you have any other tools or enhancements you’d like to see in the future, please leave a comment on this blog or directly contact your account director.

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October Consumer Connection Roundup

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Team Motista

The Consumer Connection Roundup features the top articles and blogs that catch the attention of the Motista Team each month on issues and events related to consumer connection.

Here are the most noteworthy articles on marketing and advertising trends we read during the month of October. This month’s articles range from marketing lessons to be gained from George Orwell’s 1984 (yes, really!) to tips for gender-specific marketing. If we didn’t include articles that you thought were especially provocative, please share them with us in the comments section.

Articles of the Month for October:

  • Beer industry looks to rebuild ‘Brand Beer’ by E.J. Schultz, AdAge – Looking at the current state of the adult beverage industry, MillerCoors CEO Tom Long lets the cat out of the bag by revealing that the beer industry is losing badly to spirits. After dominating the category for decades, beer no longer appeals to consumers the way it has in the past. Spirits are taking advantage of targeted ads to build brands and connect with consumers, and it’s working; conversely, beer companies have relied on ads that no longer resonate with their audience.
  • This consumer is not a moron, he is your child’s father by Jack Neff, AdAge –With men gaining more and more traction in the household consumer space, why would Ragu spaghetti sauce choose to alienate a demographic that controls 50 percent of household grocery shopping? Marketers need to really make sure that campaigns don’t enrage the “other demographic,” otherwise the brand will lose customers, even if it connects with the targeted demographic.
  • A branding lesson from George Orwell by Jim Signorelli, Adotas – Jim cites the passage in Orwell’s classic 1984 that states, “The best books are those that tell you what you already know,” which he points out also holds true in marketing and branding. The best marketing and advertising campaigns resonate and connect with their intended audiences in a way that validates consumer thoughts and actions. We’re glad George Orwell believes in emotional connection, as well!
  • How to avoid being one of the most hated companies in America by Jodi Koskella, 1to1 Magazine – In marketing, you never want your company to be on this list. When brands break basic trust with consumers, they hardly have a fighting chance to build more positive connections. With intelligence in your hands on how your consumers engage with your brand at every level, you can lead your company to success.
  • 5 rules of marketing to women by Belinda Parmar, Fast Company – When marketers try to segment demographics, they often forget marketing basics (see number 1 – “Don’t pink it and shrink it”). In our opinion, number 3 on this list really resonates with us. Regardless of who you’re targeting, if there’s no emotional connection with the product, consumers will not purchase your product. Period! “Do consumers emotionally connect with my product?” should be the first question that matters when embarking on a new marketing strategy. If you’re answer to this question is anything but “yes,” you need to go back to the drawing board.
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